Frances Gregg
by George J. Dance Josepha Frances Gregg (1885 - April 21, 1941) was an American poet and prose writer.Frances Gregg (1885-1941), Un Site Powys. Web, June 26, 2015. Life Gregg was born and grew up in the mid-western United States. She was said to be strikingly beautiful; in a novel, H.D. describes her eyes as "the blue eyes, it is said one sees in heaven." In 1911 Gregg met American poets H.D. and Ezra Pound, and began an affair with both of them: as she wrote in her journal at the time, she and H.D. were "Two girls in love with each other and each in love with the same man." In July 1911 she and H.D. traveled together to London, where Pound had gone. Pound introduced Gregg to London literary society, including May Sinclair. Gregg returned to the United States that October, while H.D. and Pound remained in London."Frances Gregg, Plymouth, the War & The Mystic Leeway," Scrapblog: A writer from the southwest, April 28, 2009. Web, June 27, 2015. In Philadelphia the following year, Gregg met John Cowper Powys, who also fell in love with her. Being already married, Powys set her up with his best friend, Louis Wilkinson. Gregg and Wilkinson married, and she moved back to England. The marriage produced 2 children, but the couple divorced a few years later. Gregg remained in England, living in the early 1920s in Suffolk where she contracted breast cancer but eventually recovered. In the late 20's she lived in in London, where she worked as a journalist and wrote stories for the News Chronicle. In the 1930s she was in Norfolk, the Chiltern Hills to Sussex, High Wycombe. By 1939 she lived in St. Columb in Cornwall, where she worked at an A.S. Neill-type school and looked after young evacuees. By 1941 she was the manager of the Navy, Army and Air Force Institute at the Citadel in Plymouth. Gregg, her mother, and her daughter were killed in a World War II bombing raid at their home in Plymouth in 1941. She was buried in a communal grave at Estover, Plymouth, under her married name, Josepha Frances Wilkinson Recognition After Gregg's death, her son Oliver rescued her autobiographical writings, along with letters from Pound, Powys, and H.D., from the Citadel, and used them to compile her memoir, The Mystic Leeway. Publications Non-fiction *''The Mystic Leeway'' (edited by Oliver Marlow Wilkinson & Ben Jones). Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1995. Letters *''The Letters of John Cowper Powys and Frances Gregg'' (edited by Oliver Marlow Wilkinson). (2 volumes), London: Cecil Woolf, 1996. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Frances Gregg, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, June 27, 2015. Poems by Frances Gregg #To H.D. See also *List of U.S. poets References External links ;Poems *Gregg in Poetry: A magazine of verse, 1912-1922: "Pageant," "To H.D." ;Books *Frances Gregg at Amazon.com ;About *Frances Gregg (1885-1941) at Imagists.org *Frances Gregg (1885-1941), Un Site Powys *"Frances Gregg, Plymouth, the War & The Mystic Leeway" at Scrapblog: A writer from the southwest. Category:20th-century poets Category:20th-century women writers Category:American poets Category:American women writers Category:English-language poets Category:Poets Category:Women poets Category:20th-century authors Category:American authors Category:Authors